There are few more aggressive bad-movie proponents than former video store clerk Quentin Tarantino, who turned his love of blaxploitation, kung fu and all things drive-in into a career creating similar films for a new generation. “Grindhouse,” made with partner in crime Robert Rodriguez, is a conjoined “double feature” of B-movie fare—Tarantino directed “Death Proof,” Rodriguez directed “Planet Terror”—complete with scratchy prints, fake trailers and snack advertisements designed to simulate the drive-in movie experience.

In a glossy book promoting the film, Tarantino compares the “grindhouse” experience with the raw power of “punk rock.”

“These films existed outside the mainstream of Hollywood. You almost can’t believe some of the sexuality and gore and brutality” in them, Tarantino says in an interview in the book. And like a culturally transmitted disease, Tarantino finds their sensibility contagious.

“I’ve spoken a bit to Quentin about it,” said B-movie mogul Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma Pictures, home to cult classics like “The Toxic Avenger” and “Class of Nuke `Em High. “And he admires the spirit of individuality in (such) films. (And he admires) that these people, for better or worse, put their heart in a film, and that there is an energy there that stands the test of time.”

Kaufman, who co-founded Troma in 1972, is an auteur of what some might call bad movies.

“In Europe, (Troma films) are called trash. But it doesn’t mean the same thing.

“The first time they said that I got (angry). And they said, `No, no, no. It’s a genre. It’s a mentality. It’s not like garbage,’ ” Kaufman said. “In this country, there are a lot of people who enjoy Troma movies because they’re so bad, they’re good. But that’s because they don’t get them. All they see is the sex and violence. But, what the hell, that’s OK, too.”

Just as a bad movie is in the eye of the beholder, so are the reasons that we love them.

One reason is “that there’s something in the movie that resonates for the individual,” said Steve Swasey, director of corporate communications for Netflix.

Which means that there are no bad movies—just guilty pleasures. Taste is subjective. One person’s trash is another person’s funny bone tickled, heartstring plucked or gray matter stimulated.

The thin line between love and hate straddles another possibility—that, like an ugly pet, an irksome child or a rocky marriage, a bad movie can be loved despite its flaws or even because of them. To paraphrase the early-‘60s pop hit “Leader of the Pack”: It’s bad, but it’s not evil.

“Bad movies we love” could almost be a genre. If it were a grocery item, it would be cheese. The premise is absurd, the dialogue is flat, and the acting defies description.

And our relationship with it transcends logic. It is like an inside joke or a secret handshake recognized by a society of fellow travelers. We know something that you don’t know, because we love something that you don’t (although our obsession probably says more about us than it does about the film).

“It’s easy to enjoy a good movie,” said Al Walker, editor of the bad-movie Web site Agony Booth (www.agonybooth.com), named after a particularly bad “Star Trek” episode. “But finding the unintentional humor in a bad movie feels differently than laughing at something that’s supposed to be funny.”

That most movies are merely mediocre rather than horrible, Walker said, is because “you don’t have the situation today where one guy can run off with the studio’s money and make the insane film he wants to make.”

Since most films are made by committee, he said, “it’s kind of hard to make something that’s laugh-out-loud bad.”

But rest assured, they will keep trying. And as long as they do, we’ll keep loving them.

YOU KNOW IT’S A BAD MOVIE IF ...
It stars Patrick Swayze.
You leave the room and don’t put it on pause.
It has “Chainsaw” in the title.
It comes from Netflix in a brown paper wrapper.
Richard Roeper and a guest critic gave it “Two Thumbs Up!”
The title is followed by a Roman numeral.
Your kids liked it.
An animal talks.
There is a flashback within a flashback.
You wish the people sitting behind you were talking louder.
It shares its title with a pop song.